I am currently taking a class that revolves around dinosaurs and their evolutionary characteristics.

It is astounding to me that dinosaurs existed 240 million years ago in a variety of forms with unique and novel traits that evolved due to adaptation and mutation for millions of years.

Neanderthals at the most existed 450,000 years ago and disappeared close to 40,000 years ago. In the grand scale of time, 400K years is nothing and yet here were are today. Our Homo brethren seem so close to us. It is just amazing how far as a species we have come, in an evolutionary sense, in such a short amount of time. To ponder how infinitely fragile we are as vertebrates and how we have managed to adapt to and master our environment. We create and destroy with such ease and whim...how terrifying.

As someone with barely any knowledge of this field, I'm literally amazed at what information you can get out of just some teeth.

Also, as a newish parent, reading about the weeks of starvation for these young children literally imprinted on their teeth, even from a different species from untold ages ago, still jabs at my heart. Nature is rough.

This analysis of minute amounts of chemicals is just astounding! I would never have thought it would be possible to talk about weekly variations 250,000 years ago. This ain't your grandfather's archeology anymore

I found it interesting that we have a nursing example from 250,000 years ago where the child was nursed for 2.5 years, and an example from 100,000 years ago where the nursing seems to have abruptly stopped after 1.2 years.

Yes, we need more data than that before we can make generalizations about how Neanderthals nursed. Put in a human perspective, that's like comparing a child born now to one born 150,000 years ago and trying to draw a conclusion about human culture using those two data points.

I am currently taking a class that revolves around dinosaurs and their evolutionary characteristics.

It is astounding to me that dinosaurs existed 240 million years ago in a variety of forms with unique and novel traits that evolved due to adaptation and mutation for millions of years.

Neanderthals at the most existed 450,000 years ago and disappeared close to 40,000 years ago. In the grand scale of time, 400K years is nothing and yet here were are today. Our Homo brethren seem so close to us. It is just amazing how far as a species we have come, in an evolutionary sense, in such a short amount of time. To ponder how infinitely fragile we are as vertebrates and how we have managed to adapt to and master our environment. We create and destroy with such ease and whim...how terrifying.

Just a nit-pick. Neanderthals lasted until 24,000 years ago in Gibraltar. Their demise has generally been attributed to the coming of the last ice age, but there's new evidence to support the possibility that the race was made extinct due to the eruption of a super-volcano in the region (possibly Italy's Campi Flegrei.)

The exact cause(s) of their demise isn't settled science, though.

As for pondering how far Humans have come in such a short period of time, it should be noted that, unlike every other hominid species before us, we've invented a myriad of means to destroy ourselves, both intentionally and unintentionally, in that comparatively short period of time. That doesn't really speak well for our ability to survive.

In Nature, survival determines "winners and losers". Hominids are fairly a short-lived species altogether on that scale. Alligators, turtles and even the Coelacanth have all of us beat, even if you took every kind of hominid and stretched out their timelines consecutively instead of concurrently.

We may be at the top of the technological heap, but our longevity as a species isn't at all much to brag about.

I am currently taking a class that revolves around dinosaurs and their evolutionary characteristics.

It is astounding to me that dinosaurs existed 240 million years ago in a variety of forms with unique and novel traits that evolved due to adaptation and mutation for millions of years.

Neanderthals at the most existed 450,000 years ago and disappeared close to 40,000 years ago. In the grand scale of time, 400K years is nothing and yet here were are today. Our Homo brethren seem so close to us. It is just amazing how far as a species we have come, in an evolutionary sense, in such a short amount of time. To ponder how infinitely fragile we are as vertebrates and how we have managed to adapt to and master our environment. We create and destroy with such ease and whim...how terrifying.

Just a nit-pick. Neanderthals lasted until 24,000 years ago in Gibraltar. Their demise has generally been attributed to the coming of the last ice age, but there's new evidence to support the possibility that the race was made extinct due to the eruption of a super-volcano in the region (possibly Italy's Campi Flegrei.)

The exact cause(s) of their demise isn't settled science, though.

As for pondering how far Humans have come in such a short period of time, it should be noted that, unlike every other hominid species before us, we've invented a myriad of means to destroy ourselves, both intentionally and unintentionally, in that comparatively short period of time. That doesn't really speak well for our ability to survive.

In Nature, survival determines "winners and losers". Hominids are fairly a short-lived species altogether on that scale. Alligators, turtles and even the Coelacanth have all of us beat, even if you took every kind of hominid and stretched out their timelines consecutively instead of concurrently.

We may be at the top of the technological heap, but our longevity as a species isn't at all much to brag about.

It's worth noting that the article you cite starts with a note saying that new results disprove the 24,000 year dating, and that there weren't any Neanderthals in Gibraltar after c. 42,000 BP.

As someone with barely any knowledge of this field, I'm literally amazed at what information you can get out of just some teeth.

Also, as a newish parent, reading about the weeks of starvation for these young children literally imprinted on their teeth, even from a different species from untold ages ago, still jabs at my heart. Nature is rough.

Just came here to post the same-ish thing.

I love this kind of science -- stories about (near-) humans at a human timescale .. but from 250,000 years ago. Rare. Beautiful.

Add to that seasonal demarcations and a resolution of approximately 7 days and we're practically looking at a calendar from the era.

I'm sure the fact that I have a six month old daughter has nothing to do with my interest in this story...

I found it interesting that we have a nursing example from 250,000 years ago where the child was nursed for 2.5 years, and an example from 100,000 years ago where the nursing seems to have abruptly stopped after 1.2 years.

Yes, we need more data than that before we can make generalizations about how Neanderthals nursed. Put in a human perspective, that's like comparing a child born now to one born 150,000 years ago and trying to draw a conclusion about human culture using those two data points.

Not just in modern humans, but it also raises the question of possible variability in cultural practices in different Neandertal populations as well. Just a wonderful example here of how good science always raises new questions while it addresses existing ones.

The teeth were radiocarbon dated to around 250,000 years ago, and the set of samples recorded about three years of life.

This is impossible, because 250 000 years is a way outside of the range of radiocarbon dating. There is not enough C-14 in samples that old to measure it.

And indeed the article on Science Advances says that the assumed age of the Neanderthal teeth is from Thermoluminescence dating of associated burnt flint fragments and the sample that was carbon dated is a modern human tooth that was found on the same site and came out as about 5 400 years old.

I found it interesting that we have a nursing example from 250,000 years ago where the child was nursed for 2.5 years, and an example from 100,000 years ago where the nursing seems to have abruptly stopped after 1.2 years..........

Not trying to be pedantic here but this is almost certainly a research artifact, not proof of an evolving trait among Neanderthals. It's safer to assume that the mother probably died or otherwise became incapable of breastfeeding the kid, than that such a dramatic behavioral shift really took place species wide. H.Sapiens' and H.Neanderthals' infants were very much of same size and vulnerability, meaning we should expect about the same time of nursing and care.

What may be important, when considering the fate of Neanderthals, is the fact that they seemed to need more food than we do. If current studies are valid, they needed up to 10% more calories than an average modern human of the same size, which in turn means that they may have suffered more during food shortages.

I am currently taking a class that revolves around dinosaurs and their evolutionary characteristics.

It is astounding to me that dinosaurs existed 240 million years ago in a variety of forms with unique and novel traits that evolved due to adaptation and mutation for millions of years.

Neanderthals at the most existed 450,000 years ago and disappeared close to 40,000 years ago. In the grand scale of time, 400K years is nothing and yet here were are today. Our Homo brethren seem so close to us. It is just amazing how far as a species we have come, in an evolutionary sense, in such a short amount of time. To ponder how infinitely fragile we are as vertebrates and how we have managed to adapt to and master our environment. We create and destroy with such ease and whim...how terrifying.

Just a nit-pick. Neanderthals lasted until 24,000 years ago in Gibraltar. Their demise has generally been attributed to the coming of the last ice age, but there's new evidence to support the possibility that the race was made extinct due to the eruption of a super-volcano in the region (possibly Italy's Campi Flegrei.)

The exact cause(s) of their demise isn't settled science, though.

As for pondering how far Humans have come in such a short period of time, it should be noted that, unlike every other hominid species before us, we've invented a myriad of means to destroy ourselves, both intentionally and unintentionally, in that comparatively short period of time. That doesn't really speak well for our ability to survive.

In Nature, survival determines "winners and losers". Hominids are fairly a short-lived species altogether on that scale. Alligators, turtles and even the Coelacanth have all of us beat, even if you took every kind of hominid and stretched out their timelines consecutively instead of concurrently.

We may be at the top of the technological heap, but our longevity as a species isn't at all much to brag about.

Although being at the technological heap might be the thing that ensures we survive in the long term. We're the first species with an awareness of our place in the universe and a (so far) rudimentary means to get off the planet. That might come in handy one day, given the likelihood that our activities - or some natural disaster - are going to make a mess of it sooner or later.

I am currently taking a class that revolves around dinosaurs and their evolutionary characteristics.

It is astounding to me that dinosaurs existed 240 million years ago in a variety of forms with unique and novel traits that evolved due to adaptation and mutation for millions of years.

Neanderthals at the most existed 450,000 years ago and disappeared close to 40,000 years ago. In the grand scale of time, 400K years is nothing and yet here were are today. Our Homo brethren seem so close to us. It is just amazing how far as a species we have come, in an evolutionary sense, in such a short amount of time. To ponder how infinitely fragile we are as vertebrates and how we have managed to adapt to and master our environment. We create and destroy with such ease and whim...how terrifying.

Just a nit-pick. Neanderthals lasted until 24,000 years ago in Gibraltar. Their demise has generally been attributed to the coming of the last ice age, but there's new evidence to support the possibility that the race was made extinct due to the eruption of a super-volcano in the region (possibly Italy's Campi Flegrei.)

The exact cause(s) of their demise isn't settled science, though.

As for pondering how far Humans have come in such a short period of time, it should be noted that, unlike every other hominid species before us, we've invented a myriad of means to destroy ourselves, both intentionally and unintentionally, in that comparatively short period of time. That doesn't really speak well for our ability to survive.

In Nature, survival determines "winners and losers". Hominids are fairly a short-lived species altogether on that scale. Alligators, turtles and even the Coelacanth have all of us beat, even if you took every kind of hominid and stretched out their timelines consecutively instead of concurrently.

We may be at the top of the technological heap, but our longevity as a species isn't at all much to brag about.

Although being at the technological heap might be the thing that ensures we survive in the long term. We're the first species with an awareness of our place in the universe and a (so far) rudimentary means to get off the planet. That might come in handy one day, given the likelihood that our activities - or some natural disaster - are going to make a mess of it sooner or later.

The longevity of our species probably is influenced most by the fact that there are so many of us and we have spread over the whole globe. A species that is so widespread in such huge numbers is unlikely to be driven into extinction by anything short of a global and devastating catastrophe.

I found it interesting that we have a nursing example from 250,000 years ago where the child was nursed for 2.5 years, and an example from 100,000 years ago where the nursing seems to have abruptly stopped after 1.2 years.

Yes, we need more data than that before we can make generalizations about how Neanderthals nursed. Put in a human perspective, that's like comparing a child born now to one born 150,000 years ago and trying to draw a conclusion about human culture using those two data points.

The 2.5 year figure is also interesting when put into the context that Neanderthals are known to have matured faster than modern humans. Not quite a Lysa Arryn story, but a 2.5 year-old Hneander. would be more developed than a 2.5 year-old Hsapiens.

I just watched an interesting program on PBS ("Neanderthal") about how their genes are intermingled with ours; IMO the best part was a bit about a duo of brothers in Holland that recreate incredibly expressive sculptures based on their skeletons.

Stunning stuff. This guy is based on a skull from Grotte de Spy:

But there's a mother and child based off of skeletons found in Gibraltar that fits this article better.

I still have difficulty believing that modern humans had the Neanderthals for lunch because they were better suited for their environment than modern humans from African. The competition between them and modern man was going on all of the time and they survived it. I think someone dropped a rock on their ass. What I mean is that there was a large asteroid or comet impact somewhere on the earth that caused the winters in the Europe to become severe enough to diminish their numbers and gave modern man the opportunity to replace them.

"We may be at the top of the technological heap, but our longevity as a species isn't at all much to brag about."

Almost a moot point when every life form on the planet, including us, can claim an unbroken line of ancestors extending back over three billion years. Our species didn't appear all at once. Every parent had parents and there are no clear lines of demarcation between any of them unless you skip back a LOT of generations.

I also expect that tool-using intelligence is a bit of a deal breaker in that it makes us able to live and prosper in almost every single Earthly environment possible and, while our civilization may be vulnerable, as a species we may be hardier than cockroaches in that something, somewhere, will survive almost anything.

It's probably going to be a struggle, but eventually something of us will get out of this star system. It only has to happen once but, after that, and short of a galactic-level extinction event, or something along the lines of the Big Rip unexpectedly ending the universe, it's difficult to imagine anything completely eliminating everything descended from us before the stars all begin to go out.

I am currently taking a class that revolves around dinosaurs and their evolutionary characteristics.

It is astounding to me that dinosaurs existed 240 million years ago in a variety of forms with unique and novel traits that evolved due to adaptation and mutation for millions of years.

Neanderthals at the most existed 450,000 years ago and disappeared close to 40,000 years ago. In the grand scale of time, 400K years is nothing and yet here were are today. Our Homo brethren seem so close to us. It is just amazing how far as a species we have come, in an evolutionary sense, in such a short amount of time. To ponder how infinitely fragile we are as vertebrates and how we have managed to adapt to and master our environment. We create and destroy with such ease and whim...how terrifying.

Just a nit-pick. Neanderthals lasted until 24,000 years ago in Gibraltar. Their demise has generally been attributed to the coming of the last ice age, but there's new evidence to support the possibility that the race was made extinct due to the eruption of a super-volcano in the region (possibly Italy's Campi Flegrei.)

The exact cause(s) of their demise isn't settled science, though.

As for pondering how far Humans have come in such a short period of time, it should be noted that, unlike every other hominid species before us, we've invented a myriad of means to destroy ourselves, both intentionally and unintentionally, in that comparatively short period of time. That doesn't really speak well for our ability to survive.

In Nature, survival determines "winners and losers". Hominids are fairly a short-lived species altogether on that scale. Alligators, turtles and even the Coelacanth have all of us beat, even if you took every kind of hominid and stretched out their timelines consecutively instead of concurrently.

We may be at the top of the technological heap, but our longevity as a species isn't at all much to brag about.

Although being at the technological heap might be the thing that ensures we survive in the long term. We're the first species with an awareness of our place in the universe and a (so far) rudimentary means to get off the planet. That might come in handy one day, given the likelihood that our activities - or some natural disaster - are going to make a mess of it sooner or later.

The longevity of our species probably is influenced most by the fact that there are so many of us and we have spread over the whole globe. A species that is so widespread in such huge numbers is unlikely to be driven into extinction by anything short of a global and devastating catastrophe.

That might be largely mitigated by the fact that we can create global catastrophes of various stripes and that a large portions of the population would die if grocery stores and fast food restaurants were no longer available as they'd have no idea how to survive without modern support.

Populations that nurse their children longer also tend to have lower birthrates, which means those populations often don't grow as quickly as those that wean their children sooner. For Neanderthals, trying to compete for territory against newly arrived Homo sapiens, population growth may have played a role, though it's too early to say for sure.

The data implies no nursing difference though. But other results have been interpreted as that the migrating Africans matured earlier, perhaps as a result of better circumstances - they evolved in a better climate and were 10 times as populous when they arrived in Europe.

I still have difficulty believing that modern humans had the Neanderthals for lunch because they were better suited for their environment than modern humans from African. The competition between them and modern man was going on all of the time and they survived it. I think someone dropped a rock on their ass. What I mean is that there was a large asteroid or comet impact somewhere on the earth that caused the winters in the Europe to become severe enough to diminish their numbers and gave modern man the opportunity to replace them.

This seems an interpretation of fiction.

Latest results is that the common evolution was most likely one of free interbreeding rather than competition (though that may have happened locally). The modern mongrel is the results of crossing early Europeans (Neanderthal population) and Africans (Out-Of-Africa population) and at least two more similar interbreedings.

And no evidence of impacts/abrupt climate changes other than the glacial cycles.

It's just astounding to me that they can time the age of the teeth by weeks in a 250,000 year old sample. Even if there are rings in the teeth the must be minuscule (I checked and the article doesn't mention the thickness range of the rings). Also that they can detect the chemicals at so low levels in such a small sample.

Regarding humans going extinct we are a very adaptable species living in places as diverse as Barrow, AK (before modern conveniences of course) and the Kalahari Desert. As long as a group of humans can find enough food, water and shelter they can survive. Even global warming isn't enough to make the whole planet unlivable (unless maybe we get hydrogen sulfide oceans poisoning the atmosphere). Some of the knowledge we've gained over many thousands of years will survive making the survivors a little more efficient. So I don't think homo sapiens is going to go extinct any time soon*.

*Baring catastrophes like a big asteroid or comet hitting the Earth, perhaps a lethal disease with 100% morbidity escaping from a lab (not too likely) of course. Even a supervolcano wouldn't kill us all off I wouldn't think.